Best09 Blog Challenge: Best Social Web Moment

December 27: From Gwen Bell's Best09 Blog Challenge: Social web moment. Did you meet someone you used to only know from her blog? Did you discover Twitter?

The photos are: Jodi and I (in the belfry at John Muir's home! laughter!), Ti and I and Jan and I.

This Summer I met two women I had only known via the teleclasses I lead and the Yahoogroups we have been in as a result of those teleclasses. I have known these women for several years and yet meeting them, face-to-face, was so ultra cool.

I also met a friend from the social networking website 43things.com.

All the formalities were dropped and we dove immediately into the good stuff, you know?

First, I met Jodi. We decided to spend the morning at the John Muir home in Martinez, California. We have been writing together for years, so it seemed fitting that the place we would meet is the place John Muir wrote all his books.

Since I had the children with me (we were on our road trip, remember) I wanted to schedule moving-and-learning activities when I met friends rather than “lets sit in a Starbucks and chat” sort of moments. The John Muir home was the perfect place and we had a blast laughing and talking and photographing… we fell right into a delicious groove. She felt a little weird at first (surreal is probably a better word) but I was so close to heaven by that point, it was no big deal.

The night before, after all, I had met one of my friends from 43things.com. She had been a beloved for a long time and when I pulled into her driveway (again, with all three children) she was jumping up and down with glee. During that same day I had been to the college my Granny attended nearly eighty years ago and now, I was in the town where I first lived, as a baby, which just happened to be the town she lives in now.

I was on an emotional high that didn’t go away.

My children thought this was such fun, meeting these people who adored their Mommy and knew way too much about them… hey, I am a writer and they are some of my favorite subjects so naturally these “strangers to them” knew oodles about their lives. *Giggle*

It was two days later we arrived at a park for lunch where we met another friend from my writing life. Jan had prepared an outdoor lunch for us to munch on alongside her favorite river (she knew I am a river rat here in Bakersfield.) I think it was the Williamette River. We were late arriving there since we had to stop in Springfield, Oregon, to visit with anything Simpsons related (for Samuel).

Jan was a gracious host in her favorite park and once again, photos were brought out and pictures were taken, giggles were shared like little girls.

My daughter Katherine recalls those early days of our roadtrip with delight. “I loved meeting your friends and seeing how you responded to each other. You were all like little girls!”

A very high compliment, indeed.